Friday, 14 March 2014

Crowdfunding for Aye Inspired

The decision to crowdfund Aye Inspired wasn't an easy one to make. We
wanted to keep everything FREE. We're artists, and contrary to what
Damien Hirst would have folk believe, we don't like talking money, it
embarrasses us.

Here's the thing, we couldn't get a
free gallery space because we are "political". Most gallery spaces in
Aberdeen are council facilitated and you don't need us to tell you how
Aberdeen City Council feels about the YES vote. One venue did suggest we
open up our submissions to the Better Together camp for "balance". But
here's the thing. there is no artistic or creative movement in the No
camp that we're aware of. Even if we've wanted to open it up to No
voting artists (which we don't- let them think of it themselves- this is
our gig), what if we got no submissions from them? Would one of us have
to hastily sketch a Union Jack on the back of an envelope and get it
framed the night before the exhibition just to show that we're balanced?
Nah.

The thing is, we're not balanced. We are
apologetically and unashamedly YES VOTING ARTISTS. We will not
compromise on our message. Already we've over 30 artists submitting
wonderful engaging work to Aye Inspired. We've got submissions coming
from as far afield as Barcelona. We've got artists approaching us from
all over Scotland England and Wales. Last night we had a donation from
the USA!

We've already got our Aberdeen venue, (yet to
be announced and so exciting...) but we'd like to take Aye Inspired
around the country if we can.

So that's why there's
a wee donate button over there on the right hand side of the page. Sorry, but we need cash to hire at
least one venue in every town we'd like to go to. If we hire our venue,
we can show our exhibition and not have to stifle who we are and what
we're about. If we get enough donations, we'll take our exhibitions to
as many places as we can afford to hire. it's that simple. We'll still
take up offers of free venues where they appear, so if you have a venue
or know one please use the contact button below to get in touch.

So
if you want to help us get out there as artists and start our
conversation with the voting public as artists, please give whatever you
can. It could be 50p, it could be 5 bawbees, it could be what you've
saved in not buying David Bowie's latest album. We're grateful for
anything. Anything left over from venue hire we'll use for publicity and
if there's still anything left over we'll donate it ourselves to the
Yes campaign.

I put the call to yesterday and we're
doing nae bad, but we'd like to make this exhibition big enough to
reach as many folk as we can. So please donate to Aye Inspired.